‘We Grown Now’ review: Coming of age in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green projects, in a movie of true distinction

Can we really trust tears as a sign of a film’s quality? A century of so many shameless, relentless cinematic mediocrities suggest the answer is no. If a movie will stop at nothing in its mission to make you cry, yes, statistically speaking, you’ll probably comply. Or not, because you feel jerked around as a viewer.

Baig grew up in Rogers Park on Chicago’s north side, in a Pakistani Muslim household a few miles from the site of the Cabrini-Green public housing projects. The last tower was leveled in 2011. “We Grown Now” brings that place and its community back, with a tenderly observed story about two boys from Cabrini-Green learning how to say goodbye to each other when they must.

Malik lives with his sister, Amber , their mother Dolores and grandmother Anita . A Mississippi transplant in the Great Migration north, Anita sees her daughter working hard and not getting much for it, though she’s looking for advancement within her company. “We Grown Now” focuses on Malik’s days and nights, mostly with Eric: navigating the projects, school, dreaming of what’s beyond the place they know.

This scene is a standout; elsewhere, now and then, Baig makes some points a little too neatly, as when the boys shout “We exist! We exist!” in unison, from their high-rise balcony. Small matters, in the scheme of things. “We Grown Now” creates a fully realized visual and philosophical point of view, tied to the boys at the center. The movie may be dreamy, but it doesn’t ignore the realities of what’s happening to Cabrini-Green.

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